// BUSINESS INNOVATIONS //
Invest in the Best Codie Sanchez Discusses Her Fascinating Venture into the Business of Cannabis By Alex Moersen fringe investments, but I really didn’t know very much about the cannabis space at all, and it started because I personally work with a lot of veterans. About two years ago, we started trying to get a lot of these veterans jobs and money and all of that, through some of the charity activities I do. What I realized is these men and women, they’re not ready for that. They’re literally trying to restructure their minds to come home completely, and they’re not all about these crazy opioid cocktails that are slowly killing them.
She successfully built an asset-management business in Latin America. She served as an investment consultant at companies such as Facebook, Apple, and Amazon. She is a prominent entrepreneur, investor, and speaker. Now, Codie Sanchez has her eyes on the cannabusiness. As an early stage investor in cannabis companies like Cresco Capital and BlueBonnet Ventures, among other private entities, Sanchez brings her outsider expertise to a blossoming industry. This year, she shared her inspiration and wisdom at MJBizCon 2018, contributing her investment knowledge to attendees. In this exclusive interview, Sanchez explains how she broke into the cannabis space, what she looks for in a company, and her opinions on the future of legalization. Cannabis & Tech Today: How did you get into the cannabis investment space? Codie Sanchez: It was definitely not something I thought I was going to invest in, to be perfectly honest. I’m always interested in
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Cannabis & Tech Today // Winter 2018
So, all of these people – who are faith, God, love, and family first – were now talking about cannabis as the solution. I don’t know how much I believed it at first, until I started actually seeing these guys utilize it to stop all the things we now know in the industry at least are pretty normal (anxiety, depression, and hypervigilance). That’s why I got in. I started getting in by originally investing in some veteran-owned companies. Then I backed a cannabis hedge fund that was investing in a slew of companies across the space. Now I back a venture, which is probably my largest investment, called Texas for Veterans, which is the operating company behind BlueBonnet Ventures. And these two groups are really focused on legislating in the state of Texas to allow for medicinal cannabis for those with PTSD or TBI or chronic pain. So, it really came out of a need of the community, not necessarily an opportunity seen monetarily. C&T Today: How does investing in cannabis businesses differ from other industries? CS: Well, I think the number one difference is probably professionalism. Anytime I’ve invested in any business, it’s all about investment in people ultimately, right? Which sounds super
cheesy, except it’s absolutely true. If you talk to any venture capital investor out there, the idea is important, yes, and the execution is important, yes, but it’s the grit to just deal with all of the completely heart-wrenching things that will happen to you in business that’s really important. For me, it was trying to find, in cannabis, individuals who had a really high level of professionalism, who had a high level of ethics and morals to speak of, and who weren’t focusing on the “f*** the man” aspect. Don’t get me wrong, I’m all about a little rebellion now and then too, but I want to invest in people who have a track record. I can actually see they’ve done some sort of business and they have a high level of professionalism through education or other ventures that they’ve been a part of in cannabis. C&T Today: This year, cannabis became legal in Canada, and just a few weeks before that the DEA rescheduled some CBD-based medications. How are these shifts in the legality of cannabis changing the investing landscape? CS: Personally, if we’re talking about my gut, I think it’s just an eventuality for widespread legalization. However, I think sometimes we can get ahead of the trend. I only touch the medicinal side of the plant right now. So, anything that we’re investing in is really not on the recreational side, and that’s for a couple reasons. One, I want to feel really clear, from a legal perspective. Two, I want the research and the science behind it. From my perspective, I’m just not as interested in recreational investing right now. I also think in that space it can get crowded fast. I mean, look at Oklahoma, right? Anybody can get a license in Oklahoma. So, your prices are going to get driven down really, really quickly, and your barriers to entry are going to be really low.
